


Dressing Up and Other Childish Games

by AdamantSteve



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Get Together, Seduction, attempts at seduction, clint & natasha bffs, dressing up, mentions of Clint/Coulson - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantSteve/pseuds/AdamantSteve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha attempts to turn Steve's head using the power of clothes, hair and makeup. But it's not a crush, it's professional pride. </p><p>(AKA Natasha trying to manipulate Steve (who, seriously, she does not have a crush on) into asking her out with help from best friend and confidante Clint Barton)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dressing Up and Other Childish Games

"Nat, what the fuck are you wearing?" 

Natasha levelled her gaze at Clint - a glare that had in the past caused many an involuntarily shiver. Clint just looked her up and down from where he lay on the sofa. Natasha was dressed 'Dime Store' as they'd taken to calling it: huge gold earrings, hair extensions, long false nails. The 'girls' were very much invited to the garish party that was Natasha's get up.

 

She blinked, the false eyelashes heavy on her lids. "It's an experiment."

Clint nodded slowly. "Who's head are you trying to explode?"

She very nearly denied it, but Clint knew her too well. Plus, she was dressed like - this - and he was well aware she wasn't on a mission. She answered in a small yet dignified voice: "Steve."

 

Clint gawped at her. " _Steve_?! In that?!" He looked away and shook his head. "How did I not realise that's what you were doing these last couple weeks? I thought you were just having an identity crisis." 

She heaved a sigh and walked over, pushing his legs out of the way before sitting next to him, the vinyl of her skirt riding most of the way up her thighs. He put his feet on her lap and she ignored them. "Well, it started out as kind of a game with myself. _You_ know." Clint grinned. Any man that Natasha couldn't immediately read she'd get distracted by til she could figure out just how to play him. Stark had taken all of three seconds; Fury half an hour. Inscrutable Phil a day and a half. Steve was evidently proving a tough nut to crack. 

 

"So what've you tried so far? I loved the turtleneck last week by the way." 

"Well, demure doesn't work at _all_ ," she began. Steve hadn't even looked up from his book when she'd gone all Sunday-best. "And nor does domestic."

"So _that's_ why you tried to bake!" 

"Hey!" She did something to the bottom of his foot that made his balls twinge. "You ate about a dozen of those cakes."

"They were cakes?" 

" _Yes_ ," she rubbed lightly over the treacherous spot on Clint's foot in warning and he kept quiet.

 

"And then I went the other way with it and I seem to be making progress. I tried on six different pairs of heels in front of him the other day and he was into it." 

Clint leaned his head over to see the boots Natasha was wearing and she straightened a leg so he could see. They were shiny and red and had clear platforms and diamante heels. "Where did you even get those from? Did you actually..." Clint's face fell serious. "Nat. Did you rob a hooker?" 

 

She smirked. "Too much?" 

"In context, they're perfect," Clint pressed a hand to his heart and closed his eyes. "I'm so proud." 

 

"Jackass," she pushed a finger into a tiny hole in Clint's sock and pouted, bright magenta lips shining. "I helped you when you were being an idiot over Coulson."

At even the mention of their ex handler, Clint got a goofy look on his face. Natasha laughed at him. 

 

"Alright, so how can I help?" Clint asked, wiggling a toe til Natasha gripped it, absentmindedly poking her nails into the fleshy underside. 

"I guess just follow my lead for now? Or... or maybe you could do the whole thing I did with Phil." 

Clint raised his eyebrows. "Really? You want me to flirt with him til he tells me he's straight?" 

Natasha's pout had reached her eyes now, imploring Clint for help. He laughed. "Ok, I'll do it. But, you know, if this get up doesn't work maybe he really is a robot."

"You think?"

"You've really got it bad, haven't you?" Clint teased. 

"I just," she started, clearly frustrated at having made so little progress, "don't get it. I'm actually running out of plays here Clint. Me! That doesn't happen." 

"Alright! We'll get to the bottom of it. The cute, round, pert bottom of it." 

Natasha actually looked embarrassed, something Clint hadn't seen many times before. "You're totally schoolgirl crushing on him aren't you!?" 

"Ugh, shut up." 

"Aw Natty Nat." 

"I will literally kill you in your sleep." 

"I know," Clint said fondly.

 

-

 

The Dime Store look didn't work. Steve walked in shortly after Nat had secured Clint's help and barely even looked at her. Not in an 'I'm averting my gaze' way either. He just walked by on his way to the kitchen, asked if they wanted anything and nodded to them on the way back out with his cup of tea. 

"Yikes! Are SHIELD not paying you enough?" Tony exclaimed a short while later. Clint put one of Natasha's eyelashes on Tony's arm and he freaked out thinking it was a spider.

 

-

 

"Yo Steve, I gotta get a bunch of clothes and crap, you wanna come to the mall with me?" 

Steve looked up from his crossword in surprise. "The mall?" 

"Yeah Tony said I could borrow one of his cars so I could go to the new place out of the city. I like when all the stores are real close together, you know? C'mon I bet you could use a few quadruple-X Hanes." 

"Sure, Clint, that would actually be great."

"Awesome! I'll meet you down there." 

 

-

 

Clint picked out one of Tony's cars, because really, if he was going to just leave them right there with the keys in the ignition, Clint wasn't _not_ going to take one for a joyride every now and again.

 

They shopped and talked about this and that: Clint's still-new relationship with Phil and Phil's crippling embarrassment about how he'd handled his first meeting with Steve. They talked about the rest of the team in broad terms and Clint didn't push on the Natasha subject, waiting to see if Steve would bring her up at all.

 

They ate in the food court, Steve wolfing down the same insane amounts of food he always did with his _I'm Eating_ grin on his face. He just seemed to love eating food, which Clint could definitely relate to. Clint didn't bring up Natasha til they were lining up for pastries. "Did you try any of Nat's cakes last week?" 

"They were cakes?"

Clint laughed. "They were meant to be. You like a woman who cooks?"

"Oh," Steve shrugged. "I never really thought about it. I like cooking, so it's not really so important." 

"You like cooking?" 

Steve shrugged again. 

"How come you never do?" 

"Oh, I don't know, it just doesn't seem my place to go making a mess of the kitchen." 

Clint frowned. "What are you talking about? You were there when Tony was making his 'mi casa es su casa' speech. Plus the more you use it the less chance Natasha has to make whatever the hell those things were again."

 

Then they got into a long conversation about what Steve liked to cook and what Clint liked to eat, til he was agreeing to cook the team dinner next week. 

 

-

 

"What the hell, Clint. He likes casserole? That's what you're giving me? You spent all day with him and all you got was casserole!?" 

 

"I'm sorry! It wasn't just that. He likes tons of stuff." 

"Yeah but the kind of food he likes is not helpful!" Today she was wearing a fitted skirt and had her hair in the same kind of victory rolls. She had deep red lipstick too. She looked like a tasteful pinup from the 1940s.

 

"Did he at least look at any women? Men? Magazines?" 

"Not really. We kind of got sidetracked with the food."

"You're the worst spy." 

Clint pouted.

"No he's not," Phil said, entering the room. "You're a great spy, Clint." He walked over and brushed a hand through Clint's hair. Clint leaned into it and smiled. 

"Ugh," said Natasha.

 

-

 

Steve did look at Natasha, but frowned and looked away. Natasha swore under her breath.

 

-

 

“Just ask him on a date!”

Natasha paced up and down in front of the open doors of her wardrobes (they took up one entire wall of her sizeable bedroom and contained just about every style of clothing imaginable) and huffed. 

“That is so not the point.”

Clint knew that, knew it was all about the game for her, the bending of another person to her will. When he thought of it like that, it sounded cruel on Natasha’s part, but he could understand it; Natasha was used to everyone being so utterly transparent. To find someone who was so opaque was at once fascinating and terrifying to her. 

 

It was a matter of pride as much as anything.

 

“What about…” she held up something that looked like it was mostly made out of thin black ribbons. 

“Jesus, Nat, no.”

She pursed her lips and picked at it before putting it back into the wardrobe. Clint laid back on the bed and made fart noises with his hands. He was bored. Natasha threw something small and lacy at him and Clint picked it off of his face. It appeared to be some kind of tassel… “Oh Nat, gross!”

“Too much?” She turned to him with another pair of pasties, holding them over her breasts before jiggling to make the tassels move. 

“You’re insane, you know that?” Clint said, tossing the pastie back at her. “You ever think maybe he’s _just not that into you_?” 

Natasha sneered. “No.”

Clint conceded that it was unlikely that there really was no flavour of Natasha that would pique Steve’s interest. 

Natasha made a noise of frustration before tossing everything back into the wardrobe and cursing in Russian at it. She slumped onto the bed beside Clint, who pulled her close. Natasha huffed again but didn’t elbow Clint in the ribs. She was adorable.

 

“You think I’m pretty, don’t you?” She asked plaintively, and Clint grinned before pressing a kiss to her forehead. 

“The prettiest.” 

 

-

 

Clint patiently watched Natasha try on more things before escaping to do literally anything else. He was playing checkers with Bruce in the common area when Natasha appeared again, in holey running shorts and a large, misshapen hoodie. Her hair was half fallen out of the scrunchie she’d worn to try on half her wardrobe and her face was still free of makeup, unusual in even the common areas of the tower. She was still beautiful, but softer, a calm sort of beauty rather than the serene sort of perfection she usually exuded.

 

She moved one of Clint’s pieces somewhere Clint hadn’t even thought of before dropping herself onto the couch and turning on the TV to watch old Russian cartoons. Tony had arranged for some endless stream of them to be available 24/7 on a surprisingly astute hunch. They were pretty weird but Nat liked them, and she settled around a steaming mug of milky tea to watch. 

 

After a while, Steve walked in, evidently having just been for a run; his hair was wet with perspiration and sweat dampened the front of his shirt, but his face suddenly seemed to be _too_ red for having been around Central Park a few times. He looked at Natasha and his mouth formed a small O as his steps faltered. 

 

Natasha barely looked away from the TV but then did a double take at Steve’s reaction. “Really?” she said, annoyed. 

“Oh, hey, Nat,” Steve replied. 

Natasha’s eyes met Clint’s across the room before they went back to Steve, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. 

“Wanna watch cartoons?” Natasha asked, and Clint finally got to see the expression he knew Nat had been chasing all this time - eyes lit up and huge, eyebrows raised, mouth slack. The look of a kid faced with the most delicious, delectable thing imaginable, forbidden up til this moment, when the possibility of being allowed a taste had finally been granted.

 

He sat next to Natasha and listened intently to her quiet descriptions of what was going on on-screen, the two of them gravitating slowly towards one another til Natasha could lay her head delicately on Steve’s shoulder. 

 

Bruce smiled fondly at them and then turned to whisper at Clint, “Do you think now she’ll stop with all the…” Clint knew what Bruce’s vague gesture meant and smiled. 

“Pretty sure,” he replied.

 

-

 

They were in a restaurant a few months later, Natasha was back to her usual clothes and - crucially - her usual demeanour. More relaxed, perhaps, and Clint was pretty sure he knew why, though any attempt she made to describe her bedroom antics was met with Clint covering his ears and running out of the room. There were some things he didn’t want to hear about. 

 

“Don’t you mind it, though?” Clint asked, stealing a piece of her bread to slide through oil and vinegar before tossing it into his mouth. “Don’t you miss dressing up?” 

Natasha shrugged, eating her own tiny piece. “It is weird,” she admitted, “but it’s… good. Good for me, I mean. Can’t really hide behind a persona or a costume…” she trailed off, smiling sweetly to herself. 

 

“You falling in love, little spider?” 

“ _No_ ,” she said petulantly, because how ridiculous, but she still had a soft smile that clearly didn’t want to go anywhere. Clint didn’t push it, because he didn’t want to sour anything that was clearly making Natasha so happy. 

 

He had good enough eyes of his own to be able to see just how she felt about Steve Rogers.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
